'The Lying Game' may have done the twin switch thing on television a few weeks ago for ABC Family, but it couldn't come close to matching the slick production and dense plot layering we saw with the series premiere of 'Ringer' (Tue., 9PM ET on The CW).

Sarah Michelle Gellar made her much-anticipated return to television with a role so big, she had to get two parts. And while sisters Siobhan and Bridget only shared a couple of scenes together, Gellar proved rather adept at carrying on an emotional conversation with herself, such as it is.

It was a little jarring in the opening scene, with Bridget running from the masked man she presumed was there to kill her. By that point in the show, she'd already stepped into her sister Siobhan's seemingly idyllic life, but things aren't always what they seem. I kept expecting, though, for her to simply kick that guy's butt Buffy-style, but this is a different girl and she doesn't seem to have the fighting prowess of the Slayer.

That said, she is clever enough to take care of herself with a method as lethal as Buffy with the vampires of her world. It establishes right away that Bridget is willing to kill to protect herself, though in doing so she raised more questions for herself, and way more for us.

Bridget's story lays it all on the surface, while Siobhan's is all buried deep in a bog of lies and deceit. Bridget made a complete mess of her life with substance abuse and prostitution, but found a way out of it after witnessing a crime. But then she bailed the day before she was set to be the star witness. There's our first question ... why would she do that?

Now the guy is out and gunning for her, and it's only a matter of time before he finds her. Where she winds up is on the doorstep of her twin sister, Siobhan, who has so many secrets of her own that it could take Bridget all season long to uncover them all.

Out of nowhere, after an awkward attempt to apologize by Siobhan for something that happened six years ago. Something so severe, the sisters not only became estranged, but Siobhan hadn't even told anyone in her posh life that she has a sister.

That little reveal made it easier for Bridget to step into Siobhan's life after Siobhan mysteriously disappeared on a boating excursion. What happened on the water is perhaps big question number two. We didn't even see at what point Bridget decided to take a nap, so she may have been drugged.

She assumed that her sister committed suicide, so saw it as an even better way to hide from her problems than witness protection. But, as we saw at the end, Siobhan is alive and someone on the phone is telling her, "We have a problem."

This scene was mere moments after that opening one where the masked man was chasing Bridget down with a crowbar. Only he wasn't there for her. Well, that's not 100 percent clear, but the photo he had in his pocket was clearly labeled Siobhan Martin, so did Siobhan run from her own life, knowing that Bridget would try to step in and pretend to be her, thus making a target out of her own flesh and blood? Question number three!

In that life, we find that Siobhan's relationship with her husband isn't that great, she's been sleeping with her best friend's husband for awhile now, and she's about four weeks pregnant. Of course, now everyone thinks Bridget's pregnant, but that's how those things go. Oh, and Siobhan's husband has the requisite surly teenage daughter that nobody understands.

By blending those types of stereotypical soap opera drama character relations into a story layered with mysteries, murder and secret agendas gives us a multi-layered story that proved to be richer and more compelling than I expected. In a single episode, we got plenty of questions to lure us back, as well as several well-rounded characters and situations that are intriguing on their own.

It's easy to see why this show managed to convince Sarah Michelle Gellar to return to series television. It's a very different creature from 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer,' but it looks to have a mythology as rich and characters as fascinating, though it takes itself much more seriously.

Add a Comment

15 Comments

terrible show, the scene of the two of them on the boat was laughable, the water backdrop was so phony it looked like a cartoon or something from 1950. her diving into the water was also so phony looking. very dissappointing

It was as expected - shallow, convoluted and silly. No wonder ABC turned their nose up. And SMG has not improved her acting with age - that same nasal, wooden, flat acting so common in all of her bombs where the writing was blamed. HELLO - hope she doesn't appear on every single talk show like she's in an emmy award winning hit or she's the only woman in the world to have a baby. Please don't go there as most women have to go back to work right away and they don't even relate to her. Sorry - she was never on my radar as a relevant actress. Buffy was her 15 minutes and Ringer is just filling an empty time slot.